


Running

by mariadperiad20



Series: Foray into B99 [27]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Asthma, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Oxygen Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25501936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariadperiad20/pseuds/mariadperiad20
Summary: Oh. Hecouldn’tcatch his breath, Jake realized with dawning horror, as his attempts to breath just… weren't working.He looked back up, but he couldn’t even see Amy anymore, her sprinting figure having vanished - probably turned a corner somewhere.Request fic!
Relationships: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago
Series: Foray into B99 [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1320137
Comments: 25
Kudos: 220





	Running

As Jake tripped over yet another chunk of broken pavement, he reflected that the city really needed to invest in better sidewalk maintenance. Amy was about half a yard ahead of him, and the perp another few yards before her.

Said perp was in a full-out sprint, having taken off the moment he caught sight of the pair. He wasn’t that much of a threat, mostly just an unending string of muggings, but had been notoriously difficult to catch. Considering the amount of effort it took to track him down, Jake was not looking forward to having to redo the process all over again should they fail in catching up. He was sure Amy would be pissed, too - as much as she loved paperwork, she only loved it when it was _useful_.

Still, the guy was fast - really fast - and swerving around people on the sidewalk, Amy right on his heels.

Jake kept up, his breathing getting more ragged as the perp showed no sign of slowing down. Amy, too, showed no sign of exhaustion - of course not, she was Amy - but he felt himself wanting to slow down.

He was definitely becoming a bit self-conscious about his inability to catch up. Sure, he didn’t hit the gym the way Terry did, but he had always thought he kept in relatively good shape. That opinion of himself was definitely fading though, considering that it was legitimately becoming painful to breath.

With a curse on his lips - save he didn’t have the breath to say it - Jake slowed to a stop, watching as Amy kept running - he doubted she had noticed him stopping, since they’d been chasing the guy for at least five city blocks.

He put his hands on his knees, completely winded, staring at a broken piece of pavement as he took deep breaths. His chest was tight, and he brought up one hand to rub at his side. Probably a stitch, but it was surprisingly painful to breath. Looking up, he could see that Amy and the perp were already practically specks, and Jake couldn’t help but laugh a bit at it all, how insanely fit the guy was.

Laughing sort of hurt, so Jake stopped. He tried to take in another breath, but the tightness in his chest worsened, constricting until it felt like he could barely take a single breath.

Oh. He _couldn’t_ catch his breath, Jake realized with dawning horror, as his attempts to breath just… weren't working.

He looked back up, but he couldn’t even see Amy anymore, her sprinting figure having vanished - probably turned a corner somewhere.

Fuck.

Jake fumbled for his comm, clicking it on.

“Amy,” He choked, barely managing to even get that alone out.

“I got him down.” Her voice came across - she seemed slightly out of breath herself - “He made it to 43rd, can you bring the car to us? I don’t want to have to haul him all the way back.”

Jake pressed, the comm again, hands feeling shaky from a mix of panic and rapidly encroaching oxygen deprivation.

He tried to gather enough air to speak, but it felt like with each breath his chest became tighter and tighter, taking in less air each time.

“Amy,” He said again, before breaking into a coughing fit, nearly crumpling to his knees but managing to barely catch himself on an alley wall - gross, alley juice, he half-noticed.

“Jake?” Amy’s voice turned sharp, “What’s wrong?”

He was rapidly becoming dizzy, and his legs felt like they were going to give out underneath him. Making a split decision, Jake looked at the street signs, pressing his comm long enough to say, “36th, fal-” The rest of his words were swallowed in another cough, his body shaking from the force of it.

She responded with something, but Jake couldn’t hear her over the sound of his own body’s attempts to hack up a lung. He figured she had heard him, though - well, hoped, anyway, considering he doubted he’d be able to garner the strength to speak another word.

His coughing slowly faded - he simply no longer had the energy to do so - and returned to wheezing for air that simply wasn’t coming.

Jake leaned heavily against the wall, losing more and more of his strength to stand. He should sit down, he knew, if only so that he wouldn’t fall down later. At the same time, however, he was afraid that, should he sit down, he might very well just not be able to get back up at all.

He held himself upright, hoping that it would grant him just a slight amount of more air. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that his ribs were going to snap from the pressure encircling his chest in a, seemingly infinitely tightening, band.

Jake brought up his free hand, the one not supporting him, to rub at his chest, trying to ease it. The effort was fruitless, as he had expected, but he felt a growing sense of desperation to do something, anything, to slow this down. His legs felt like jelly, and the sensation of the wall against his palm was increasingly tingly, while his vision continued to spot more and more.

He sincerely hoped he wasn’t about to pass out, since that would definitely be a very bad sign - as opposed to the non-breathing, which was only a generic bad sign - especially since he wasn’t sure if Amy even knew what was happening.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then snapped them back open as he pitched forward, nearly slamming his face into the wall in front of him.

His other hand came up, pressing against the wall so that he could right himself back to his feet. After a moment, Jake cautiously tried to remove his second hand, only to almost immediately stagger. With a grimace, the spots long since turning to near-complete blackness, Jake swiveled where he stood, slamming his back against the wall so that he wouldn’t fall again.

He would have groaned from the pain the action caused, save that he could barely even wheeze anymore, let alone speak or make vocalizations. One hand came up to his chest, but he flopped it back down, seemingly unable to even have the strength to keep it raised enough to rub at his chest.

Fuck.

Jake would really rather not die from _running_ too much. He was supposed to go out in a blaze of glory, John McClane style.

Not to mention, Amy would be really upset about it. She said she didn’t want to date cops for this very reason, and Jake couldn’t help but feel like he’d let her down.

Jake was trying to decide if Charles would be able to lie in his obituary to make his dying sound more epic, or if he would be too devastated to construct one, when he felt a hand on his shoulder in a bruising grip.

“Jake?” The voice was Amy’s, and Jake would have reacted with relief, except his entire body was dead weight. “Hang on, I already called the paramedics.” She continued, her hands dropping to pat across his chest, and then tilting his head forward - clearly checking for the injury she expected him to have.

“What happened?” She asked, voice shaky, hands now on either side of his head in an attempt to feel out for an injury under his hair.

Jake didn’t respond - couldn’t - but weakly brought up one hand to tap at his chest, wheezing at the effort, before dropping his hand back down, exhausted by the effort.

He couldn’t see her, but he imagined that she had her patented disappointed-Amy look on her face. The one she normally had when he did something stupid and got himself hurt. Although, in his defense, he hadn’t actually done anything stupid this time, so it wasn’t really his fault.

“Fuck,” She muttered, voice shifting as she put the pieces together, “Your asthma’s back, isn’t it?”

Jake tried to nod, but that slight shift forwards was too much for him. He dropped like a brick, vision now completely dark. Hands caught him, one gripping his side, the other on his shoulder. Amy lowered him to the ground, her words fuzzing in and out of Jake’s brain without any actual information coming through.

She sounded worried, though - although maybe that was just him projecting. Considering there was a decent chance he was going to die, or whatever.

White noise was building around him, Amy’s voice inaudible over the odd, stuffy quiet. His vision had gone nearly completely dark, and he was clinging to the bits of discolored bright spots in the hope that he could stay conscious. He had stopped wheezing at some point, his body exhausted in its clearly unsuccessful efforts, and he felt a growing sense of dread that his passing out was inevitable.

Jake blindly reached out, grabbing Amy’s jacketed arm, wishing he could apologize for making her watch him die but not having the words to say it.

His hand felt weak, oxygen deprivation having long since taken its toll on his body. He wasn’t entirely aware of closing his eyes, didn’t even notice when he couldn’t bring himself to open them again.

He couldn’t hear anything, but he was pretty sure Amy was screaming his name.

When he did hear something again, it was the buzz of fluorescent lights. Jake tried to open his eyes, then immediately regretted it, the light sending a stabbing pain into his skull. He tried to groan, but was met with the _intensely_ unpleasant sensation of a tube in his throat.

Jake brought his hand up, but a hand grabbed his wrist, gently pulling it back down. His limbs felt weak, and, despite trying to push against it, his action was easily prevented.

“Jake, you’re safe. Just stay still.”

Amy was in the room, the fact of that was enough to make Jake open his eyes again. Pushing through the pain of the brightness - seriously, who made hospitals so freaking white - he fixed his eyes onto where her voice came from, waiting until the spots vanished and she came into focus. Amy was perched on the edge of a chair, as close to the bed as she was able to get, hands clenched on each other.

She was staring at him with an expression of absolute relief, which Jake took as a good sign. Not being able to speak, he tried to give her a grin, but the tape on his face pulled awkwardly and wouldn’t really let him.

“Jake,” Her hand shifted so it was on top of his hand, rather than wrapped around his wrist, “I’m so glad you’re alright. They had to use mechanical ventilation, so that’s why you aren’t breathing naturally. Your asthma made it so they couldn’t get air in otherwise, and… and they did a good job on that.” She was clearly trying to get out as much of the information as possible before she broke down - not dissimilar to how they gave reports, actually, minus the breakdown parts - but her voice was cracking.

Jake wished he could reassure her, that he was fine, that she had saved his life, but instead just opted for turning over his hand so that he could hold hers. He tried for another smile, and Amy scoffed, glancing away for a moment and blinking a few times.

“I thought you were…” She said finally, “When you didn’t… you stopped breathing, and… I thought that-” She cut herself off, taking a steadying breath. Jake squeezed her hand.

“I don’t want to think about all of that right now.” She said firmly, “Once you’re better, we can talk about it together, okay? Right now, I just want to focus on making you feel better.”

Jake wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, earning a half-hearted smack from Amy.

“I don't want the nurse to kick me out, Jake."

Jake would’ve laughed if he could, instead opting for a shrug.

Amy tried to continue the conversation as best she could - “I know how much you hate silence, babe” - recounting how she had only caught the runner because he’d tripped on some guy walking his dog. And how, according to the beat cops she’d sent to collect him after rushing off to help Jake, the guy had tried to run again, except the dog guy was super pissed off about the whole thing and basically sat on him until the beat cops showed up.

Still, without Jake to add color commentary, Amy soon trailed off, staring at their linked hands as she rubbed a circle against his skin.

“I was really worried.” She admitted finally, unable or unwilling to meet Jake’s eyes. “I care about you, Jake, I don’t want- I don’t want you to get hurt.” She left it unsaid - he would have died. He doubted they were ready for that acknowledgement just yet, not when he couldn’t even speak his part on it, so he was grateful for her omitting it. “I’m glad you’re okay, but… I was scared.”

Jake felt guilty - he knew that wasn’t what Amy intended, and she’d probably get mad at him if she knew he was beating himself up over it - but he felt guilty that he was making her worry. That he had made her afraid. He knew how she felt about dating cops, he’d, by some miracle, convinced her to give dating him a try anyway, and now he’d gone and almost died on her. Not even something where it was a known risk, but out of nowhere.

Jake wanted to express it all, but instead just opted for another hand squeeze.

Judging by the way Amy smiled, soft and sad, at him, Jake had the feeling that she understood him anyway.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Total Request:_ rip thanks tumblr void >:( anyway i loved ur first asthma fic so much that i asked if u could make another! with it being like in the middle of a case like maybe jakes chasing a perp? and his partner (boyle/rosa/amy idk?) has to help him? tysm in advance ;u;
> 
> thank you for your request! i enjoyed writing this fic (also, i based the progression based on oxygen deprivation, so it should be moderately accurate)
> 
> i love comments! they are awesome to read :D


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